Crassus Snow's handkerchief

Snow's handkerchief in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.

Crassus Snow's handkerchief was a handkerchief that once belonged to Crassus Snow and was inherited by his son, Coriolanus Snow.

History

During a meeting between the tributes and mentors ahead of the 10th Hunger Games, Lucy Gray Baird was moved to tears when Coriolanus gave her a big square of bread pudding, so he offered her this handkerchief so she could dry her eyes. At the end of the session, she tucked it into the outside pocket of his book bag. He forgot about the handkerchief, but later rediscovered it in his book bag on the first day of the Hunger Games. He was glad to have "something so personal, a talisman of sorts," so he kept it in his bag.

In the evening on the third day of the Hunger Games, Coriolanus went to see Dr. Volumnia Gaul in her lab at the Citadel for a follow-up appointment about his wounded arm. On his way out, he came upon two lab assistants trying to get a cart with a tank of snake mutts onto the elevator. Coriolanus asked where the snakes were headed to, and the assistants claimed they were being taken to another lab. However, Coriolanus was suspicious that they would be used in the arena. He knew the snakes would not attack a familiar scent, so he got the idea to expose them to Lucy Gray's scent on the handkerchief. The assistants left him alone with the tank for a moment while they retrieved a cooler, and Coriolanus blocked a camera with his body as he dropped the handkerchief into the tank. This stunt worked, saving her life when the snakes were released into the Capitol Arena on the fourth day.

After the end of the Games on the fifth day, leaving Lucy Gray as the victor, Coriolanus was directed to go to the Academy's high biology lab, where he expected to be reunited with his tribute. However, he was confronted there by Dean Casca Highbottom. The handkerchief was one of three pieces of evidence laid out on the table, alongside a napkin and the silver compact. This condemned Coriolanus for cheating to help Lucy Gray win the Games.

Highbottom explained that a lab assistant had found the handkerchief in the tank on the morning of the fourth day. Everyone had checked their own pockets to see if they had misplaced theirs, and "one young fellow" claimed responsibility, since he had bad allergies and had misplaced his handkerchief a few days before. However, just as he was offering his resignation, someone noticed the initials "CXS" stitched into the corner. "CXS" were the initials of Crassus Xanthos Snow, a distinctive name that cast the blame on Coriolanus. Coriolanus assumed that an analysis had already been done on the handkerchief and uncovered both his and Lucy Gray's DNA.

Description

The handkerchief was dingy and white, and it had the initials "CXS" hidden in the border pattern. Both the border and the initials were stitched with white thread, so the initials were "so unassuming that you’d have to look carefully for it, but irrefutably there."

In The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, the initials were arranged in the order "CSX", with the center initial "S" being larger than the two on other side of it. The initials were also far more prominent than in the book description, plainly embroidered in big, gold letters.

Trivia

• In the film, the handkerchief and compact were the only pieces of evidence for Snow cheating.